Marcus Wareing determined not to be new Gordon Ramsey

WHEN chefs are treated like film stars, it must be tempting to step out of the kitchen and onto the red carpet.

Especially as Britain’s culinary A-list are now big hitters in the US; Gordon Ramsay dines at the White House, Jamie Oliver gets invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

So Marcus Wareing could be forgiven for selling his soul – and his books, and his pasta sauce and his chopping boards – for a taste of personal fame.

Having been a business partner of Ramsay, he’s perfectly placed to know all about the lure.

If anything, though, that seems to have weighed in on the con side of the debate, rather than the pro.

“I’ve had the option to increase my profile beyond just work, but my decision not to go down that road was influenced by the fact that when I was working with Gordon, my main aim in life was not to be like Gordon.”

Which doesn’t sound particularly flattering of his fiery former pal (and wedding best man), until he qualifies: “Because we were working so closely together, I always had this fear factor that I’d go on TV and start swearing and shouting. But I don’t want to be recognised for that and I never wanted to replicate him.

“There is only one Gordon, and one Jamie, and one Heston, and I was always scared of being branded as the same, or trying to be the same.

“When people talk about celebrity chefs, there’s really only a handful and that’s not what I’m about,” Marcus insists. “For me, a celebrity is someone who is in the public eye, who is consistently in the newspapers and on TV and their private life is monitored by the general public and the media.

“Yes, I do little bits of TV work, like a lot of chefs do, but there are no celebrities in my kitchen. Reaching my goals as a restaurateur is my number one priority, that’s what I get up for.”

It may be a dig, it may not. If it is, it’s artfully disguised.

The Churchtown-born chef and Ramsay parted professional and personal company after 15 years amidst legal wrangles and high profile acrimony towards the end of 2008.

The two Michelin-starred restaurant over which they had once presided together, at London’s Berkeley Hotel, ceased to be Petrus and became Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley.

It was, admits the 40-year-old, a tense time going it alone particularly as the recession was just beginning to bite. Even with a CV bearing illustrious entries including The Savoy (his first job, aged 18), Le Gavroche and a royal appointment to cook for The Queen’s 80th birthday, there are no guarantees.

His own star, while deliberately not shining in the glare of the media spotlight, is firmly in the ascendency – a fact endorsed by the impending opening of a second restaurant in the capital: The Gilbert Scott.

This one, due to welcome its first customers on April 4, will be a very different proposition to its eponymous Berkeley predecessor.

Not least, he explains, because the building in which it is housed, the St Pancras hotel in King’s Cross, dictated it should be.

“This is an iconic building, one of the most iconic in London, and I had to pay homage to that,” he says.

“I knew the restaurant had to be British and as close to what it was originally all about as we could possibly make it. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.

“First of all I’m running a restaurant, second of all I’m running a business, and you can’t just be creative and clever for your own amusement. We need to make sure if you’re eating an apple jelly, it’s an apple jelly, it’s not an apple jelly that actually tastes of oranges because you want to play with someone’s mind.

“I think Heston does that brilliantly, he’s great and he’s a gentleman, but that’s his thing not mine.”

The renovation project of the St Pancras hotel has taken 12 painstaking years in total, although Marcus has been involved only for the past 18 months.

“For me, the minute I walked in and saw it, it was something that I wanted to do,” he recalls. “I had that gut feeling and I stuck with it and it’s been right. I knew what the building wanted and it wasn’t a named chef necessarily, or a brand already built.

“This isn’t about me, not at all, and that’s always been my motto with this place.

“When I started Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, my customers were just so happy that I was in the kitchen. People would say ‘this is great, what are you doing here?’ and I’d think, where else am I going to be?

“But The Gilbert Scott doesn’t carry my name, I will only cook in one restaurant. I want to be completely open with the general public and not do what other chefs have done, which is lay claim to being in five, six or seven different places.

“I have been involved in The Gilbert Scott from the start, and I will carry on being, but no-one will be looking for me because we’re not selling me,” he smiles. “It will sell itself very well without me.”

One element of the restaurant which has had Marcus’s adept hands all over it is the menus. They will be traditional British, plundered from the jottings of cookery writers of a bygone era.

“Actually they were just ladies who wrote recipes down and put them in a book,” he adds, “but we’ve dipped into them and found some great ideas that have been forgotten.”

Amongst the recipes to feature is one for Manchester Tart, one of his school favourites.

“Exactly how it was then ... only better,” he laughs.

Evocative memories play an important part in Marcus’s current career.

He does, after all, credit a childhood spent helping his dad deliver fruit and veg around Sefton for his food passion.

“He was a merchant who used to supply the school meals service, as well as hotels and restaurants,” he remembers. “When I was 11 I had a part-time job packing potatoes, and then at weekends I’d go delivering with him. That got me in the back door, into kitchens, and I met some fantastic characters, especially the lovely ladies in the school meals kitchens.”

So, as a relocated Merseysider, did he not fancy scouse on The Gilbert Scott menu?

“That’s a good question,” he smiles, “and I did look at a scouse recipe as a matter of fact . I couldn’t for the life of me think how I was going to bring it back to life. And anyway, I’m a Lancashire lad, so I chose Lancashire hotpot instead.”